Criminal Justice Bill, Report Stage, House of Commons

• The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national voice of local government. We are a politically led, cross party membership organisation, representing councils from England and Wales.
• Our role is to support, promote and improve local government, and raise national awareness of the work of councils. Our ultimate ambition is to support councils to deliver local solutions to national problems.

• The Government proposes transferring responsibility for handling non-serious complaints about Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) from Police and Crime Panels to an ‘independent person’, such as a local authority monitoring officer. The LGA has previously raised concerns about difficulties with the current process for handling non-serious complaints about PCCs, which this proposal will not resolve. There must be further consultation with monitoring officers and local authorities about what this proposal requires, and other options to improve the non-serious complaints process should be considered.
• The LGA supports the Government’s amendments to introduce a mandatory duty on certain professionals to report child sexual abuse (CSA) as part of a holistic approach to improving the response to CSA. While it is a positive step forward, the duty must not be considered a silver bullet nor introduced in isolation. It must be supported by wider national action to ensure all professionals are trained to identify abuse, support victims to disclose abuse and ensure they receive the best possible support when they do.
• The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) recommended that people in positions of trust under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, including those who work with children in sports or religious organisations should be subject to the duty. However, these roles are not currently in scope. Given the Inquiry’s findings about abuse in these settings, we believe that excluding these roles is a significant omission and it is vital that they are included.
• Some children might be more reluctant to disclose abuse when mandatory reporting is introduced. The CSA Centre highlights that “confidentiality is also important to children who worry about losing control over their information.” To give children the confidence to come forward, all professionals subject to the duty must be appropriately trained on how to manage conversations and disclosures sensitively. Guidance around the duty must also recognise the fine balance between the time it takes to build trust with a child and the importance of reporting concerns in a timely way.
• Alongside the duty, the Government must commit to providing sustainable funding for specialist support services for victims of CSA so that when children come forward, they get the right support. IICSA identified a significant shortfall in the provision of specialist support for children and young people who have experienced sexual abuse. More than 55,000 people in England and Wales are on waiting lists for support following child sexual abuse, and waiting times for services for children who have been sexually abused has more than doubled since 2015. There is significant regional variation in services and particular gaps in provision and/or access for a range of groups, including boys, people from minority ethnic backgrounds, and disabled people.
• There must be concerted action to improve the training and support provided to all professionals that work with children, to give them the confidence to identify and report potential cases of CSA. The Home Office Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy (2021) identified that “there is a concern that professionals do not have a good enough understanding of the signs of child sexual abuse and lack the confidence and skills to talk about it.” A programme of joint targeted area inspections in 2018-19 found that professionals lacked the training and knowledge to identify abuse and protect children, and relied too heavily on children to verbally disclose abuse.
• We agree with the IICSA that there should be regular programmes of activity to increase public awareness of child sexual abuse and to challenge myths and stereotypes. This could support children and families to feel more comfortable speaking about and disclosing abuse.
• It is important to ensure that all children have the words and understanding to identify what is happening to them as abuse. There is significant evidence that comprehensive sex education has a positive impact on the likelihood of children reporting sexual abuse, so it’s important that the curriculum equips all children with the knowledge they need to identify abuse and tell someone if they are experiencing it. While this applies to all children, it’s also important to consider the specific needs of children from certain communities. Research for the CSA Centre highlights that “some victims and survivors of CSA – in South Asian Muslim and Haredi Jewish communities, for example, may be less able to name their experience as abuse because of a lack of knowledge about sex and consent.”

This new clause proposed by Government would enable the Home Secretary to make regulations to change the responsibility for handling non-serious complaints about Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) to an independent person instead of a Police and Crime Panel. It would also allow for non-serious complaints ‘not to be dealt with where the office-holder has left office.’

LGA view on Amendment GOV NC77

• In a letter to Police and Crime Panel chairs on 9 May, the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, suggested the ‘independent person’ could be a local authority monitoring officer. However, the role could also be transferred to another independent body.
• There has been no recent consultation with monitoring officers about assuming this responsibility and how they would undertake it in practice. The LGA has previously raised concerns about difficulties with the current process for handling non-serious complaints that this change does not address. We believe there should be further consultation with monitoring officers and local authorities about this proposal, and other options for improving the handling of non-serious complaints about PCCs should instead be considered.
• Police and Crime Panels are made up of councillors from councils within the area of the PCC. Their role is to challenge, scrutinise and support the role of the PCC. They are currently responsible for handling and informally resolving non-serious and general complaints about the PCC. Conduct matters (where there is an indication that the Commissioner may have committed a criminal offence) and serious complaints (where the conduct constitutes or appears to constitute/involve the commission of a criminal offence) are dealt with by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).
• Police and Crime Panels consistently raise concerns regarding the efficacy of the process for non-serious complaints that they are responsible for. The process is complex and they lack guidance, particularly regarding recording complaints, identifying valid complaints, dealing with vexatious or repetitive complaints, and the threshold for referring complaints to the IOPC. Police and Crime Panels are also prohibited from conducting their own investigations into any complaints and have no ability to impose sanctions where they conclude PCC’s behaviour has fallen outside that expected of elected representatives. Therefore, often the resolution of complaints does not meet the expectations of members of the public. These issues would not be resolved by transferring the role, as it stands, to local authority monitoring officers.
• We therefore urge the Government to consult with monitoring officers and local authorities about the implementation of the proposals and how the handling of non-serious complaints against PCCs could best be improved.

This new clause imposes a duty on persons engaging in a relevant activity in England to make a notification to the police or to a local authority if, in the course of that activity, the person is given reason to suspect that a child sex offence may have been committed.

LGA view on Amendment GOV NC65:

• It is unclear why notifications must be made to the relevant chief officer of police or a relevant local authority director (paragraph 2a), as opposed to via established referral routes. The Children Act 1989 refers consistently to ‘local authorities’ rather than specified individuals and we believe this should be the case for this clause for consistency.
• We recognise that some notifications will be made verbally (paragraph 2d). However, it must be clear in the legislation that this must be as part of a formal notification process to ensure that these are accurately tracked and addressed.
• Paragraph 4a provides that the duty to report does not apply if the person reasonably believes that another person had made, or will imminently make a report in connection with the suspected offence. Paragraph 4b provides that the duty to report does not apply if the person reasonably believes another person has made or will make a notification on their behalf. We are concerned that paragraphs 4a and 4b introduce a risk that some children may “fall through the gaps”. It would be helpful to be clear that these sections allow for organisations to follow established safeguarding processes (for example, a teacher reporting an issue to a Designated Safeguarding Lead) to ensure an appropriate notification is made.
• Paragraph 4c provides for those to whom the duty applies to work with children to build trust and support potential disclosures. Guidance will need to be clear as to how this paragraph applies in practice, so that those working with children are confident to use their professional judgement to give vulnerable children the support they need.

This new clause specifies four cases in which a person would be given reason to suspect that a child sex offence may have been committed for the purposes of NC65 (Duty to report child sex offences). These are:

• Where a relevant person witnesses conduct constituting a child sex offence.
• Where a child communicates something to the relevant person that would cause a reasonable person to suspect a child sex offence may be committed.
• Where another person (A) communicates to the relevant person (P) something which would cause a reasonable person to suspect that A may have committed a child sex offence.
• Where the relevant person sees an image or video recording, or audio recording, which would cause a reasonable person to suspect a child sex offence may have been committed.

LGA view on Amendment GOV_NC66:

• It is helpful to clarify that the duty applies only where a child sex offence is witnessed or where a direct report or disclosure is made, rather than where indicators of abuse are recognised.
• We know that recognised indicators of CSA can also be signs of other factors in a child’s life. It is vitally important that professionals have the necessary flexibility to be able to work with a child and their family to understand what may be happening to them. We are concerned that applying the mandatory reporting duty where indicators of abuse are identified could lead to professionals feeling “rushed” to make an assessment, rather than using their professional skill and judgement to identify the best way to work with and safeguard a child at that moment.
• While we agree that the mandatory duty to report should be limited to instances of known abuse for these reasons, restricting the duty to known incidents of abuse does not diminish the responsibility of professionals, and their employers, to ensure that all indicators of abuse are recognised and investigated properly.
• Rates of verbal disclosure are low at the time when abuse occurs in childhood (and more so for boys and disabled children). Where children do disclose abuse it is most commonly to family or friends rather than to professionals.
• It is therefore vital that professionals working with children understand the signs and indicators of abuse so that they are able to identify where there is a risk of sexual abuse. All professionals should receive proper training and support to be able to identify where abuse may be taking place and to make referrals based on their professional skills and knowledge.

This new Schedule specifies child sex offences and further relevant activities for the purposes of Gov NC65.

LGA view on Amendment GOV NS2 :

• There can be confusion over the definition of “regulated activity in relation to children”; therefore, the clarity provided in Part 2 of this Schedule is helpful.
• IICSA recommended that those in positions of trust under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (including those involved in teaching or coaching in religious organisations or sports) should be subject to the duty. However, these roles are not currently in scope of the new duty. Given the Inquiry’s findings regarding abuse in these settings, we believe that excluding these roles is a significant omission and it is vital that they are included.
• As some of the organisations delivering such provision are very small and may be staffed by volunteers or non-professionals, consideration would need to be given to training and support for such organisations.

Megan Edwards, Public Affairs and Campaigns Adviser

Email: [email protected]